


Dinner for two, vote for one

by captainofthegreenpeas



Category: Historical RPF, Original Work
Genre: Dialogue, Domestic Drama, Drabble, Edwardian Period, Gen, Humour, Irony, Parody, Suffragette Era, Suffragettes, with some absurdism thrown in
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-28 21:34:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16731045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainofthegreenpeas/pseuds/captainofthegreenpeas
Summary: Joseph and Josephine. Husband and wife. Suffragist and anti-suffragist.





	Dinner for two, vote for one

Once, though a long once that lasted many years, there lived a couple. On one day they were born, and on a different day, they died. While they were living, they married each other in a church. Joseph was the bridegroom and Josephine was the bride, because that was the way they liked to order things. Joseph was a publisher, by trade. Josephine was a publisher’s wife, also by trade. Josephine stirred her tea clockwise, in accordance with Newton’s laws of motion. Joseph stirred his tea anticlockwise, or clockwise, or whichever wise, and gave the matter very little thought. Teabags had not yet squeezed their way into the household accounts, so their marriage was safe from the fundamental question of whether it is blasphemy to pour the milk in first.

 

With the exception of tea, they were, as yet, of one mind in all great matters. Both preferred the taste of the Large Loaf of Free Trade to the Little Loaf of Tariff Reform, both agreed that Home Rule meant Rome Rule, both considered themselves Hedgers rather than Ditchers. They welcomed the electric light into their home, and agreed that off-white was the best colour for their new asbestos ceiling tiles. They prayed the same prayers and gave the same alms, reading the same newspapers with equal eagerness. 

 

So it came to pass that Joseph thought nothing of praising Mrs Pankhurst at dinner that night, as the soup bowls were removed.

“Jenkins told me today, she gave a truly excellent speech in Connecticut,” that’s what he said: “Sterling work.”

 

“Oh?” Josephine seemed rather surprised. “Sterling work? You agree with her?”

 

“Indeed I do,” Joseph confirmed. “The sooner you ladies get the vote, the better, if you ask me.”

 

“I cannot agree, my dear. What good would it do?”

 

“I’d have thought you might rather like the vote,” Joseph responded, as if he were planning to get it for her for Christmas. “Do you not want it?”

 

“Want it?” Josephine’s eyes were already wide with belladonna, but grew wider still, her voice as confused as if he’d bought her arsenic when she wanted arsenic soap. “Think of the damage it could do. It would spoil everything so dreadfully.”

 

“Oh come now, that won’t happen. The vote has gone to women in the Colonies, and civilisation hasn’t collapsed there.”

 

“The _Colonies_ ,” Josephine stressed stuffily. “It would be unladylike of me to call them uncivilised, so I shan’t. But they’re not _us_ , Joseph. England has so many far-reaching responsibilities; the danger of woman-suffrage is out of all proportion to the risk run by little communities.”

 

“Women can handle responsibility,” Joseph persisted. “I know you can.”

 

“ _What_ responsibilities? Look at how complex our modern State is. It depends upon the Navy, the Army, diplomacy, banking, engineering, mining, roads, shipping - so many things. Women have no knowledge of such things, yet look how many laws Parliament passes on them!”

 

“What knowledge do _I_ have _?_ I’m a publisher, and I still have the vote. Besides, some laws are about domestic things, and what man understands that better than any housewife? Have you no interest in those laws?”

 

“Oh course I do,” Josephine said in the tone she preserved in a jar for occasions when she thought people were being exceptionally stupid, “Women have been included in Royal Commissions, we can vote for local government. Maybe we could have representative women brought to consult with Government departments, in matters where the special interests of women are concerned. We would always be listened to.”

 

“You complain that _I_ don’t always listen to you, and we’re married. Why would Parliament listen to people who can’t vote? How could you possibly make a difference without a vote?”

 

“We could make a better difference. Our influence in social causes will not be increased by having suffrage, it will be diminished.”

 

Silence descended upon the dinner table as Joseph tried to puzzle out how on earth her calculations landed her with that answer. Josephine’s knife clinked against her plate. A radium dial clock ticked loudly on the mantelpiece, glow-in-the-dark face shielded by thin glass.

 

“ _Listen_ to me,” Josephine insisted. Her cheeks, already tinted with vermilion, were blooming redder. “At present we stand, regarding social reform, apart from and beyond party politics, _because_ we don’t have the vote. We’re listened to accordingly. All the reforms we need can be obtained by other means than the vote, as they have been before, only men’s natural reason will temper them and hammer them into good laws. Listen to this: if women get the vote, what will stop them from voting _for other women_? You’ll have every woman in the country thinking she can do a better job than our own Prime Minister!”

 

“Do you not already think that?” Joseph was puzzled.

 

“Some are going even further,” Josephine warned him. “Look at those suffragettes. They’ve started cutting telegraph wires! Prevented stockbrokers, in London, from telegraphing stockbrokers in Glasgow: one whole day, and telegraphic communication was completely stopped!”

 

“Well, cheers to that!” Joseph raised his wine glass. “The economy, safe for one whole day.”

 

“I wish you would take this seriously!” Josephine snapped. “Either we would have to give women the vote on the same terms as men, which would be unfair, and give the vote to more women than men, or give the vote to voters’ wives- and that would introduce political differences into domestic life!”

 

Yet Joseph thought, as Josephine quietly fumed and swore to join the Women’s National Anti-Suffrage League first in the morning, that vote or no vote, her last warning had already happened. 


End file.
